Date: December 08, 2011 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT

Overview:

In this webinar, Jon Russo and Jaime Davenport will be covering the executive marketing ingredients to help create the right key performance indicators with a real case study. Join us during this web-based discussion, where you’ll learn:

• How do you create an executive dashboard
• What is the measurable impact of data
• What processes enable marketing ROI
• Why careful thought should be put into your marketing automation suite and platform

KPIs are something executives demand out of marketing in a new era of accountability.  B2B Fusion group helps companies on this journey of marketing accountability – one such example was with Liaison Technologies who transformed their marketing organization toward a tightly aligned sales and marketing machine;  this machine is built on the right content, process, and data strategies to enable more effective revenue acquisition. This webinar session will walk you through that journey.

About the Speakers:

1. Jon Russo, President of B2B Fusion Group.

Jon Russo has been a 3 time B2B Chief Marketing Officer ranging from former divisions of General Electric to Silicon Valley start-ups. His global assignments include Luxembourg, New York City, and Silicon Valley where he led $180M M&A (GlobalCenter acq. by Frontier) and a 2003 I.P.O. of SaaS mobility company iPass (NASDAQ: IPAS) as a 16b officer. As head of marketing, he has overseen 3 marketing automation implementations, the latest implementation leveraging Eloqua, InsideView, and Bulldog while partnering with SAP, Marketo, Aprimo, and Eloqua among others. Jon Russo is a recognized speaker at numerous industry events and conferences, including at CXO, venture capital, Internet, hosting, and software as a service venues. He has appeared on national television news outlets, including Fox News. A former active duty Army Officer, Jon Russo earned his M.B.A. in Marketing from the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree in Finance from the University of Connecticut

2. Jaime Davenport, Head – Demand Generation for Liaison Technologies.

Jaime Davenport currently heads demand generation for Liaison Technologies, a security and data integration company based in Atlanta.  She has over 15 years global experience in enterprise software industry with a concentration on building effective B2B marketing and sales strategies for emerging technology companies.  She specializes in marketing to Fortune 1000, financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, federal, state and local government.  Prior to Liaison, she was at Dun and Bradstreet and Nexidia, where she developed business processes for marketing and sales using innovative technologies which reduced marketing costs, shortened sales cycles and grew pipeline.  She graduated from the University of Georgia

Watch the Presentation

We collect a large amount of data in the course of our conversations and benchmarks with clients and other B2B companies. Given the requests we receive from the market at large for social marketing data, we’d like to share some of our recent findings.

The following data is based on benchmark studies, surveys, interviews and inquiries we’ve conducted during the past 9 months. Please note that this data was collected from over 600 B2B organizations around the world, distributed equally across small, medium and large enterprises. The one common characteristic is that while these organizations may have some transactional business, they all have longer, complex sales cycles.

• While close to 70% of B2B organizations are using social media in some way, only 19% have a coordinated, enterprise-wide strategy.
• Close to 80% of B2B organizations are only applying social marketing at the top of the funnel.
• B2B organizations that integrate social media into their demand creation programs report a 32% increase in campaign responses.
• B2B organizations that use social media throughout the demand creation waterfall report up to a 40% increase in closed deals.
• Only 21% of B2B organizations are using social media throughout the nurturing phases of longer sales cycles.
• Only 19% of B2B organizations report that they are using social media tools or tactics as part of sales enablement programs.
• Less than 15% of B2B organizations have a central social media function (what we call Social Operations) that provides the services/expertise necessary to empower a wide range of employees to leverage social media.
• B2B organizations are losing up to 30% of an individual’s productivity when multiple staff are using social media in an uncoordinated way, to say nothing of the mixed marketing messages and dilution of brand that occurs.

Actually, I could have titled this post “so what” instead because that can be the sad fate of some marketing reporting. We’re seeing so many clients invest in improving their marketing reporting and analytics, and that is one of the most important steps to reaching high performance. Trouble is, sometimes all that hard work takes awhile to have the intended impact. Naturally this is frustrating to those who spend the time and invest the resources, but what’s a marketing operations team to do in the face of skeptics and inertia? Plenty! Read on.

Unlike sales, which has to live and die (and get paid) based on its numbers, marketing reporting is still developing as a management tool in many B2B organizations. It’s a fact that despite good intentions of marketing teams to improve reporting and dashboards, the gap remains wide between desire for better reports and the execution that delivers them — not to mention the skills to take that data and turn it into actionable advice. It’s even wider from execution to support for, and adoption by, marketing and senior management as the source of the truth, trusted as accurately showing marketing’s contribution to the business. It’s not hopeless, of course, and to help folks on the journey, here are three practices that stand out as the drivers of adoption for marketing reporting.

Lesson 1: Dashboard Adoption Takes Time. Our research shows that it takes up to 18 months for new reporting to be implemented and fully adopted in an organization. It’s taken a long time to build up the status quo, and it’s not going down overnight. Have a plan to communicate change and why it matters and how it will benefit the marketing function and the business, as well as to help people understand how you got to the numbers. Embed the dashboard where it can be used in daily workflow. Next, work the plan and be patient.

Lesson 2: Dashboard Trust Demands Management Support. New reporting that improves the ability to make fact-based decisions regarding what needs improvement and why will not be adopted unless it has support from the top. Ensure senior leadership within marketing (and sales) supports the effort for better reporting, or be ready for a long slog.

Lesson 3: Dashboard Adoption Requires Delivery of Value and Insight. It may be the case that senior management and the rest of marketing need to be shown exactly how better reporting can help. Use examples and internal success stories to showcase where quality insights delivered better outcomes. This can range from email deliverability diagnosis, to leads left in purgatory nurtured to become found wins, to identifying where sales tools will have the most impact on stalled opportunities. The key is to choose a visible action that will showcase how knowledge becomes power and delivers results.

Why are we still talking about “double opt-in?” It has been discussed, debated and explained by the industry leaders over and over again. Yet, it is still considered by many to be the highest standard of email permission.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against double opt-in. My reservations are for the illusion that has the industry believing that it is the highest standard of email consent. In reality, the double opt-in method is a tool that allows email senders to segment subscribers who are excited about a program and are willing to take another action by clicking on the link to ensure they remain with the email program.

But does that mean the subscribers using a double opt-in method are clear as to what they are opting into? Maybe, and maybe not. The answer lies in the disclosure language of the consent. I suggest we put more focus on the disclosure at the time of consent and less focus on the double opt-in method.

But first, when is double opt-in a good idea? If you run a community website and users are required to sign up to be a part of this community site, then why not use the double opt-in signup method to collect emails? Similarly, if you are sending a diabetes newsletter and your audience includes patients seeking education, you have an energized audience excited enough to confirm subscription. Double opt-in is also recommended for companies that are capturing emails through co-registration programs so they can confirm the true owner of the email address.

Conversely, if users navigate through your site during comparison shopping and sign-up to receive your messages, why would you initiate a double opt-in and risk missing out on the chance to communicate to all of them? If you are only mailing to a double opt-in list, you may be missing out on marketing to a huge segment that would like to receive your communication but was not excited enough to opt-in for it twice. That’s the biggest drawback to double opt-in – lost opportunities.

Regardless of where you stand on double opt-in, do not confuse it with permission levels. Generally, senders that restrict subscriptions to double opt-in adhere to the highest standards. (This could be why the double opt-in signup method has gained a reputation as the highest standard of email permission.) The knee-jerk implication is that single opt-in methods cannot maintain the same standards. That is simply not true. You can still maintain the highest standards of permission levels!

The health of the email program does not lie in whether you use a single or a double opt-in method. If you want to positively impact the health of your email program, focus your attention on these key areas: signup disclosure, relevance and frequency.

Signup Disclosure – Signup disclosure is incredibly important to your list health, but is often given the least attention. When creating a signup process, focus on aligning user expectations with the communications you plan to send. Make sure the process is clear and conspicuous. Set the right expectation regarding frequency and content at the very beginning. Many senders are reluctant to disclose frequency at this point in the collection process. Later, they find themselves struggling with elevated complaints. You can avoid, or at least diminish, this problem by using words such as periodically, frequently, weekly or daily.

A clear and conspicuous signup process also means that disclosure language cannot be in fine print or hidden in the privacy policy. Instead, it should be present at the point of collection. A preference center is a great way to capture interests and set the right expectation on what subscribers can expect to receive after signing up. A welcome message is another way to reinforce these expectations.

Frequency – Most senders struggle to find the optimal frequency for their subscribers. They are either too afraid or don’t have the technical ability to give this control to users. My advice? Stop trying to guess the right frequency for your list. Once, twice, three times a week? Who can tell?

Instead, improve frequency governance by shifting the controls from list level to user engagement levels. Set frequency based on where users are in their lifecycle. If they are actively responding to your communications, then it is likely they are happy with the frequency and content. If they are not responding to your communication, then allocate more resources to improving your content and making it more relevant.

Relevance – You can have the best signup and consent process and the best preference center in the world, but unless you can keep your message relevant, your subscribers will disengage over time. Segmentation through demographics and interests is a successful method for ensuring message relevance. Plus, it is generally easier to execute. If you segment based on user preferences, then it is important to frequently encourage users to update their preferences since these can change over time.

Behavioral targeting is also a great way for you to keep your messages relevant, especially through predictive analytics. With predictive analytics, you can study user behaviors and model them against other users with similar behaviors. This can be a powerful tool to keep messages relevant over time. Making simple adjustments in your program can translate into increased performance.

Remember, opt-in is important, but if you want to make your list – and profits – soar, focus on signup disclosure, frequency and relevance.